English Department Faculty

Chris Hair, Professor, currently serves as chair of the English Department. He came to Emmanuel College from Oklahoma State University, where he was a Visiting Assistant Professor for two years. He completed a Ph.D. in English at the University of Kentucky and MA in English and BA in English degrees from Baylor University in Texas. A specialist in British Literature, Dr. Hair’s dissertation is entitled “Seventeenth Century Discord and the Paradise Within: Genesis in the Works of Winstanley, Milton, Hutchinson, and Cavendish.” His teaching interests include renaissance literature, especially Milton, the Metaphysical poets, and Shakespeare; early modern women writers; Medieval literature; eighteenth century literature; early American literature; and composition. His publications include “Satan Illustrated and Interpreted: Interaction of Linguistic and Bibliographic Code in the 1688 Paradise Lost,” appearing in the Kentucky Philological Review, and “The Flaw in Paradise: The Critique of Idealism in Margaret Cavendish’s The Blazing World,” appearing in Renaissance Papers. Dr. Hair is currently the chair of the Honors Program and sponsor of Alpha Chi National Honor Society. He, his wife Amanda, and their four children live on campus.

Karen Compton, Instructor, started her college teaching career at Emmanuel College in the fall of 2000. In addition to teaching courses in freshman composition, introduction to literature, and American literature, she is also the director of the Academic Resources Center. She completed her B.A. in English and Mass Communication at Winthrop University and her M.A. in English also from Winthrop. Her interests include composition, American literature, and peer tutoring. Her master’s thesis was entitled “Examination of the Microcosm in Katherine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, and Stephen Crane’s ‘The Open Boat.’” Mrs. Compton and her husband Steve live in Anderson, SC, and have a daughter, Patricia Ann, and a son, Ben.

Kyle Garrett, Assistant Professor, holds a B.A. in English (2007) and an M.F.A. in creative writing (2010) from the University of Georgia. He joined the English department full-time in 2011. His academic interests include modern American literature, Southern literature, and exposing the laws that govern every true work of art. His personal interests include cooking gourmet meals, playing Settlers of Catan, and church softball. He lives in Royston with his wife, Stephanie, and their daughter, Annabella.

Stephanie Garrett, Instructor, completed her B.A. in theater at Brenau University (2006) and M.A. in English at the University of Georgia (2010). She began teaching at Emmanuel in 2010. She is the chair of the Theater Arts Committee, directing and producing shows at Emmanuel, and has worked with various theater companies including Florida Studio Theater (Sarasota, FL), the Gainesville Theater Alliance, and the Atlanta branch of Christian Youth Theater. Her interests include directing and acting, the long nineteenth-century (especially Jane Austen), British Romanticism, and Japanese and Korean literature and pop-culture. She enjoys the integration of theater with the study of literature as well as the integration of Christian faith and the arts. She and Mr. Garrett have a beautiful baby daughter, Annabella Jane, and two cats named Momo and Pete. They live in Royston and attend Ekklesia Church.

Nathan Gilmour, Associate Professor, joined Emmanuel College's English faculty in 2009 and earned his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia. His intellectual curiosity wanders afar, and he's been caught teaching classes in Old English, rhetorical theory, European literature, philosophy, and composition. Emmanuel's faculty knows him as the director of Composition Culture, a program dedicated to better teaching through more thoughtful writing. Dr. Gilmour also hosts The Christian Humanist Podcast and Christian Humanist Profiles, two podcast programs from the Christian Humanist Radio Network, and he sponsors the Emmanuel College Christian Humanists, a student organization dedicated to philosophy, theology, and other things human beings do well. When he's not thinking about old books, he enjoys coaching baseball for his son Micah and his daughter Miriam.

Paul Petrovic completed his BA and MA at Kent State University and his PhD at Northern Illinois University. His academic interests focus on American modernism, Asian American literature, post-9/11 literature, graphic novels, film, and the intersection between social activism and literature. He has edited the collection Representing 9/11: Trauma, Ideology, and Nationalism in Literature, Film, and Television, been published in journals including Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction and ImageTexT: Interdisciplinary Comics Studies, and appears in collections such as American Cinema in the Shadow of 9/11. His personal interests include traveling, Korean and Japanese culture, and caring too much about indie music, hip-hop, and extreme metal.

Sarah Petrovic earned her Ph.D. in English (2012) and M.A. (2005) in Literature and Film from Northern Illinois University and her B.A. in English Education (2003) from Taylor University. She has taught courses in film, contemporary literature, British literature, world literature, YA literature, composition, grammar, media criticism, and science fiction, and has taken a class to the U.K. to study culture and literature. Her publications include “Tipping the Odds Ever in Her Favor: An Exploration of Narrative Control and Agency in the Hunger Games Novel and Film” appearing in Space and Place in the Hunger Games: New Readings of the Novels (McFarland & Company, 2014) and “Changing Spaces of ‘Englishness’: Psychogeography and Spatial Practices in This is England and Somers Town” in Shane Meadows (Edinburgh UP, 2013). Other interests include knitting, fountain pens and all manner of stationery, watching film and television, pop culture in general, and reading, always reading.

Adjunct Faculty

Rachel Nabulsi, Instructor, earned her B.A. in Psychology from Berry College (1993), her M.A. in Hebrew Bible from the University of Georgia (1997), and her Ph.D. in Linguistics and Hebrew Bible (combined program) from the University of Georgia (2015). She has taught a wide variety of courses in the departments of English, Religion, and Linguistics at the University of Georgia, and has served as an adjunct instructor of English Composition at Georgia College and at Oxford College of Emory University. Rachel’s research interests include the texts and history of Israel and the Ancient Near East with a specialization in Iron Age Israel and Aram. Rachel lives in Athens with her husband Radi and their son Ali, and enjoys hiking and exploring new places with her son and the family dog.